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Hundreds of Chinese waited for hours outside the restaurant in Shenzhen, an economic boom town near Hong Kong, for their first taste of a McDonald's hamburger, fries or shake.

Seven years after the U.S. hamburger giant first tried to bring its Big Macs to South Korea, the golden arches were finally going up.

Photo, COLOR, Crowd gathers for opening of first McDonald's in Soviet Union, where some waited an hour for fast food.

``In fact, this is a clash between the Big Mac and Pljeskavica,'' said Vesna Milosevic, an official of Genex, a Yugoslav state-run enterprise that has contracted a joint venture agreement with McDonald's.

Glen Cook, an executive of the McDonald's Corp., said during the opening ceremonies, ``We are very excited about the opening of this restaurant, not only because it is the first one in a communist country, but also because it is one of the nicest in Europe''.

The next East European McDonald's, and the first in a Soviet bloc country, is to open next month in Budapest, Hungary .

Daniel Ng, chairman of McDonald's Restaurant Shenzhen Ltd., said it took two years to prepare for the restaurant's opening and his ambition now is to serve 10 million burgers a year.

Communism suffered its first Big Mac attack Thursday as McDonald's opened a restaurant in Yugoslavia, and police were called in to keep customers who lined up for hours from getting too unruly under the golden arches.

On Wednesday, though, it stayed open an extra two hours and served a McDonald's record 30,000 meals.

Sam Yahel, from McDonald's in Atlanta, who helped train the 630 Soviet workers, said the Soviet trainees were at a disadvantage because in most other parts of the world, new workers had at least eaten at one of the restaurants .

McDonald's of Canada Chairman George Cohon, the man behind the deal, said many people were buying multiple orders and the restaurant served 15,000 to 20,000 people in just the first five hours of operation.

``I just wanted to taste genuine American hamburgers,'' said Milica Nikolic, a high school student who waited for three hours to taste her first Big Mac.

The joint venture agreement between McDonald's of Canada and the Moscow City Council calls for 20 restaurants, though there is no timetable or even a definite plan for when or where the second McDonald's will open .

The communist world gets its first McDonald's next week, and some people here are wondering whether its American hamburgers will be as popular as the local fast-food treat, Pljeskavica.

Big Macs were priced at 3.75 rubles and double cheeseburgers at 3 rubles _ about two hours' pay for a starting McDonald's staffer or the average Soviet, but much cheaper than other private restaurants that have sprung up recently.

Opening the second McDonald's restaurant in Moscow, along with a 12-storey office block, Mr George Cohon, head of McDonald's Canada, could well be described as the Russian authorities' idea of a model investor.

McDonald's Hong Kong is a 50-50 joint venture with McDonald's in the United States.

The next East European McDonald's is scheduled to be opened in Budapest, Hungary, by the end of this year, said Vesna Milosevic, another Genex official.

The Big Mac costs 3.75 rubles, or about $5 at the official exchange rate, and dinner out for the family can come to two days' wages for the average Soviet worker .

They found you need a permit to buy nails.'' McDonald's hamburgers, fries and golden arches came to China on Monday when the fast-food chain opened its first restaurant in a nation famed for its distinctive cuisine.

The Moscow McDonald's will be open for 12 hours a day beginning at 10 a.m. and will be able, they say, to serve more than 15,000 customers a day .

``In fact, this is a clash between the Big Mac and Pljeskavica,'' said an official of Genex, Yugoslavia's largest state-run enterprise that will operate the McDonald's.

Besides its restaurants in the United States, the leading number of McDonald's are in Canada and Japan, the officials said.

The long-awaited opening of the restaurant on one of Belgrade's main downtown squares will take place March 24, the Yugoslav news agency Tanjug reported, and it will offer Big Macs, fries and the other specialities familiar to McDonald's customers in the West.

Another U.S. fast food outlet, Kentucky Fried Chicken, opened a restaurant in Beijing in 1987, and it now has four outlets there.

The world's largest version of the landmark American fast-food chain rang up 30,000 meals on 27 cash registers, breaking the opening-day record for McDonald's worldwide, officials said.

Sadik Seljami, a waiter in a small Pljeskavica outlet just a few hundred yards from the McDonald's, suggested that the American restaurant wants to drive Yugoslav fast-food outlets out of business.

"The Soviet Union is definitely a different world," Yahel said.

The Financial Times London Page 2 When the doors swung open Wednesday at the first McDonald's restaurant in the Soviet Union, thousands of Muscovites poured in to sip "milk cocktails" and taste their first "Beeg Mak Gamburgers," picking them apart to marvel at the fixin's .

Lebedeva, 25, who formerly worked as deputy director of a small food store, said that "to be this polite and to have everything this clean is new for the workers as well as for the customers" .

The restaurant, built by the company in a joint venture with the city of Moscow that began 14 years ago, brought to 52 the number of countries where McDonald's operates.

McDonald's hopes to open a restaurant in Beijing later.

South Korea may be one of McDonald's most promising foreign markets, business analysts say.

``And it was only 10 rubles for all this,'' she said.

Two years later, McDonald's and Mr. Ahn each put up $1 million in capital and borrowed an additional $4 million to form McAhn.

The Belgrade media have suggested that the success of McDonald's in Yugoslavia depends on its acceptance by citizens long accustomed to a hamburger-like fast-food dish called the Pljeskavica: ground pork and onions on a bun.

But despite the jolly opening ceremony - with Big Macs, musicians playing the balalaika, and hundreds of yellow balloons forming a giant M - life has been tough for McDonald's since it opened its first restaurant in Moscow 3 1/2 years ago.

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